The surge of tourists to the Himalayan region has seen visitor numbers jump during the first nine months of 2010 to 5.8 million, up 23 per cent on the same period a year earlier.And newly wealthy Chinese want luxury accommodation. "The St Regis Lhasa Resort offers refined luxury and superlative service in a storied city," gushes the breathless blurb on the St Regis website. "Discover Potala Palace and Norbulingka, UNESCO World Heritage Sites and Jokhang Temple, all minutes from our resort."

The idea of the Tibetan being luohou (backward) is entrenched in the official state discourse on Tibet; and the perception has penetrated the Chinese popular image of Tibet. Yet it is notable how recent an invention this is: it has been systematised only after the conquest of 1959 [...] This makes it all the more shocking to the rulers when elements of this docile and indolent native population protest: like a fish speaking back to ichthyologists.

The following two bloggers are perhaps our fish speaking back to ichthyologists. Both criticise, in a creative and light-hearted way, Chinese tourists in Tibet and their attitudes towards Tibetans. The first blogpost, "I Dare to Ask, What Have You Come to Lhasa For?" was written by Gonpo Dorje in August 2010 and posted on his page on the Chinese language social networking site RenRen.com. The post generated many comments, some of which have been translated below. This post was subsequentlyreposted by another Tibetan blogger on October 3, 2010.

One note, towards the end of her blogpost, Woeser refers to "College Entrance Exam Immigration", this is an expression that comments on the practice of students from more affluent parts of China migrating to poorer areas where college entrance exam requirements are usually lower. These poorer areas also include areas of China inhabited by "minorities".
Lastly, for more explanation and reflections on the word "minzu",see our earlier blogpost titled"Going Minzu".

High Peaks Pure Earth has translated a blogpost by Woeser that was originally written for broadcast on Radio Free Asia on October 13, 2010 in Lhasa and posted on her blog on October 18, 2010. The awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to imprisoned Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo on October 8, 2010, created international headline news. In this article from her blog, Woeser congratulates Liu Xiaobo and recounts his articles and views on Tibet. As she notes in her article, Woeser has known both Liu Xiaobo and his wife, Liu Xia, for several years and, as noted before on High Peaks Pure Earth, Woeser was the only Tibetan amongst the original signatories of Charter 08.

The first [fasheng] means “Happening” and is a reminder that much is going on here in Lhasa’s art world. The second [fasheng] means “to make a sound,” and suggests artists in Lhasa are finding and using their own indigenous voices.

The English title of the 2007 exhibition in Beijing was the rather staid "Lhasa - New Art from Tibet". For the purposes of the translation below and to keep the themes of voices and expression that are found in the article, we have stuck with the literal translation of the 2007 exhibition, "Happening, Voices".

Woeser's blog has featured much of the art work on display in Beijing. Please see the following links to Woeser's blog to see the work by various Tibetan artists:

Finally, a small note about the term 'Hongding Businessman' that Woeser uses at the end of the blogpost, 'hong' literally means red and 'ding' means the tip, it is a reference to a hat with a red tip, referring to a traditional Chinese government official.

This is the first blogpost by Woeser to reflect on the earthquake in Kham. Since this article she has written more on the earthquake which will be translated in the future. Woeser has also been following reactions to the earthquake almost every day on her Twitter page and compiling these Twitter discussions for her blog.